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Back in the day, way back in 2013 when I started TSNC, blogs were overall pretty simple and straightforward online diaries, you’d write about whatever took your fancy, take a few snaps on your phone and Bob’s your uncle. Over the last five years though, blogging has completely changed – and though there still are people that blog solely for fun, it’s now a recognised and extremely lucrative industry – and more and more people want in on the action.

So now we’re in 2018 and content creators are more than ever producing engaging, innovative content as well as beautiful magazine-worthy imagery, resulting in them being coveted by brands across the globe. And in terms of numbers of content creators, the blogosphere is pretty much saturated – especially when it comes to fashion, lifestyle and beauty sectors, so it’s more important than ever to establish your brand if you want to stand out. It’s hard though – there are no rules. There’s nobody telling us what to do or how to do it, and most of us are just figuring it all out as we go along…

So with that in mind, when I was invited along to a Brand Building Workshop event in collaboration with Currys PC World and Microsoft, I was intrigued to find out what was in store, and how it could help me. Anna Hart from One Roof Social Influencer Marketing hosted and talked us through her ideas and tips to help bloggers on their way to branding success. I found a lot of this information interesting and some incredibly helpful, so I thought it would be a good idea to summarise the bits that stood out to me, and put them across in an easy-to-digest way so hopefully they might help you too!

I don’t just want to regurgitate word for word what was said at the event, instead I’m going to go through the talk in sections, and just share what I consider to be the best bits, as well as a few of my own thoughts (sorry this is a bit long!) –

Firstly, we learned a few stats about Influencers & Bloggers…

90% of influencers are on Instagram.

The UK only accounts for 7% of the world’s influencers, compared to 30% in the US.

Last year 27k people declared earnings to HMRC as Influencers or bloggers. This is expected to grow to 100k by 2020.

Interesting stats, no? These figures just show how incredibly fast the number of bloggers and influencers are rising – and therefore how important it is to cement your brand as soon as possible.

Something Anna said that was quite interesting, was to think of the Influencer Marketplace like a newspaper stand holding different publications. Some will be quarterlies and coffee table reads, you know the type of magazines that seem to only be printed once in a blue moon, the ones with gorgeous imagery – these offer memorable content which helps grow brand awareness. At the other end of the scale you have your weekly publications, where content is aimed at directing sales across a season or occasion, and lastly the daily reads, these are short snaps of content that’s quick to digest, including offers with limited timeframes.

Now this really got me thinking, if my blog was a magazine, where would it fit in? This is definitely a good starting point when working out your branding.

Next, one of the most important things is to Recognise your USP – this is your unique selling point, the thing that makes you and your blog stand out from the crowd. I think for many bloggers (myself included) this can be really difficult to figure out. There are so many of us now, doing what essentially boils down to the same thing. So what makes you or me special? What makes your blog stand out? What’s unique about it? I think when you’ve figured out your USP, it really gives you a sense of what your blog is about, and in turn what your readers expect from you – which then also helps with branding and future direction. To help you figure out your USP, you can start by answering a few questions –

What sort of content do I want to produce? (what do you want to create)

What sort of content do I want to discuss? (what topics)

How do I want to produce my content? (blog / instagram / Youtube etc)

What is my aesthetic overall? (what look are you going for)

Who do I want to communicate with? (who are your audience)

You can then gather your answers to get a clear idea of exactly what you want to portray – honing your brand, and giving yourself direction and a framework for future content.

Next – STRATEGY! We all need a strategy for both our content and social. Personally I know this is not one of my strong points – as in I don’t actually have one at the moment. It’s ok though, I’m planning a big overhaul behind the scenes so look out for me upping my game very soon! A good place to start when it comes to strategy is your Google Analytics (and if you don’t have Analytics, hurry up and get it set up) The point here is to take a good look at your stats, and learn from the information they’re showing you. Look at what’s doing well and what’s not, look where readers are engaging and learn from that what works on your site (and social) and of course utilise this information moving forward.

SEO – I’ll admit I’m pretty clueless when it comes to SEO – I know I should really know what I’m doing by now but I’ve just never really taken the time to figure it all out. A few simple tips Anna has offered might give you a good start if you’re a bit of a novice like me –

Always name your image files – goes without saying really!

Title your content logically – use descriptive words like the name of the item you’re talking about and brand names.

Link correctly – make sure your anchor text is relevant.

Understanding How Brands Work – Now I have to say, I found this part particularly interesting. When it comes to working with brands, from my own personal experience I’ve worked directly with the actual brand, via third party retailers (department stores for example) I’ve worked with brands via PR companies, and also via affiliates and SEO companies. It’s important to understand that not every one of these will have budget to offer for collaborations. Its worth noting that PR Agencies are usually relationship based, where the focus is who fit’s the brand’s look and style, and PR’s are often not given budget for influencer campaigns. Content Marketing and Performance Marketing teams are usually the ones that can create contracted work between brands and influencers.

Gaining Collaborations & Connections – This can seem tricky, but it doesn’t have to be. Firstly get yourself a media kit put together, include all the usual stats, info about you and your blog, as well as your best bits – are you a Pinterest whizz? Is your engagement sky-high on Instagram? Maybe you have a loyal following in Slough!? (I’m sorry I couldn’t resist that) – but you get my point – anything that’s unique to you that makes you stand out, make sure it’s in there (and if it’s relevant to the brand you’re contacting, even better) Sell yourself!

Use your social networks to connect with others, LinkedIn can be great for this – and don’t be afraid to Pitch to Brands – it’s important to aim to create meaningful partnerships that are beneficial to both parties. Let the brand know why you love them, why you’d be the perfect fit, and most importantly what you can offer – back this up with stats, examples and previous work. And of course they may say no, and that’s totally fine, just make sure you ask why, and use it as a learning experience for next time.

I also wanted to touch on Transparency – Never underestimate how important it is to be transparent when it comes to your content. Your blog post is sponsored? Say so. You were gifted an item? Say so. It only takes a moment to include this in your content and it’s incredibly important for readers to feel like you’re being straight up with them.

There are a few other bits that I haven’t included, but we’d definitely be here all day if I did! So lastly, I just wanted to talk about Technology &Kit – I know may people will say you can just use your phone to do everything, but my personal opinion is that as soon as you decide you want to take blogging seriously, you really need to buy the best kit you can afford. Blogs are becoming more and more professional in appearance, and the fact is, if you want to keep up you’re going to need decent technology. I’ve recently upgraded my camera and it was the best decision I’ve ever made! This is what I’m using right now –

And I also wanted to give special mention to the Microsoft Surface Pro – I haven’t actually used a Surface Pro, but Microsoft were on hand at the event to talk us through their latest products, and I have to say it sounds fantastic – and a great alternative to a MacBook if you’re looking for something more portable. The Microsoft Surface Pro has been developed specifically with creative types in mind, and of course it features the latest tech to help you develop your ideas and work at your very best. It’s great for editing complex documents, business use, editing photos, and anything else you do throughout the day. Essentially its touch screen device incorporating the lightweight portability of a tablet, with all the features of a laptop, so it’s pretty handy. You can type on it (with the added Typecover keyboard) just like you would a normal laptop, you can use the touchscreen, and also draw on it with the Surface Pen. It honestly sounds really good! (and their new Office 365 Suite sounds pretty awesome too!)

In the interest of transparency, I also wanted to mention that this blog post is not sponsored, but it does give me a very small chance of winning my own Surface Pro – how amazing would that be! Keep your fingers crossed for me guys!

Anyway apologies for this being a super long post, I actually cut a fair bit out already! I hope the info I’ve included has been of some use – if you have any other tips on how to help build your brand, please do let me know xx

If you follow me on social you may have seen I was recently in London with ASOS – I was very excited to attend their Beauty Confidence Chat in collaboration with the latest ‘Come Together’ issue of ASOS magazine.

We were told to expect discussions on issues of identity, diversity, beauty confidence, and the changing face of the beauty industry. As well as live demos on summer beauty trends and a preview of the latest beauty and grooming collections at ASOS.

Well as you can probably imagine I was absolutely thrilled to be invited to such a fantastic sounding event! I absolutely love ASOS and apart from their ever expanding beauty range, I pick up 90% of my clothes and accessories from there too. So I instantly replied with a YES!

When we arrived at the venue, which was a photography studio, the first thing I noticed was rows of desks set up like beauty workstations – each with its own mirror, makeup set, accessories and brushes. We grabbed some drinks and took out places for the chat…

The chat was hosted by ASOS and included three of the models featured in the above ‘Someone Like You’ spread in the latest edition of ASOS magazine. We met Coral, Ash and Jordan, and they spoke about their heritage, background, and individual style, as well as their opinions on the modelling and beauty industry. It was so interesting to hear, and I love the fact that ASOS are championing diversity in across both fashion and beauty on their site.

What I learned from the event is that ASOS are supportive and inclusive of everyone, no matter your gender, ethnicity, age or background. I love ASOS’ attitude, and that they’re encouraging the use of creative makeup as an expression of your personality – it’s all about how it makes you FEEL. If you feel fab wearing blue lipstick, then do it, if applying green sparkly eyeshadow makes you feel happy and confident, then go for it!

I loved practicing some of the makeup looks we were taught, and spent most of the afternoon with amazing iridescent glitter on my face – I definitely don’t wear glitter enough!

I feel very inspired now to be more experimental and creative with my makeup – I’m planning to share some makeup looks on my upcoming Youtube channel, so keep an eye out for the launch which will hopefully be in the next month or so.

Going back to ASOS now – if you shop their beauty section, you may have noticed more recently that they now show hand swatches on site – which really is handy (see what I did there). And they’re also starting to roll out mini demo videos of beauty products too – so you can get a better idea of how to apply and use products that may be a bit more involved, such as certain skincare products and devices. I think this is such a fantastic and innovative idea, as well as being really helpful for customers.

I can’t thank ASOS enough for putting on such a fantastic day, as well as their amazing generosity. Hopefully this will be the first of many more ASOS Beauty events to come!

I was lucky enough to be invited to Goldsmith’s Norwich store re-launch last Saturday, but unlucky enough not to be able to make it! Gah! It’s not very often that events come up in Norwich so I was pretty disappointed to miss out on the champagne, canapés and in-store jazz band!

Goldsmiths are actually the UK’s largest luxury high street jewellers, and they were celebrating the re-opening of their Norwich store after an extensive refurbishment to make room for a larger jewellery and watch range, including a wide selection of TAG Heuer and Longines watches.

Goldsmiths already stock some fantastic brands including DKNY and Hugo Boss, and now a brand new customer experience area means customers can receive advice from diamond and watch specialists whilst enjoying refreshments! Leading watch brands, TAG Heuer and Longines are also available with their own branded areas, plus a new wider selection of timeless chic jewellery from Michael Kors and Emporio Armani.

I was surprised to find out that Goldsmiths have been around for over 230 years, and they’re actually the UK’s largest distributor of Rolex, they also employ more watchmakers than any other UK High Street Retailer. This Tag Heur Carrera Gents Watch is just an example of the quality of pieces on offer.

Because diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and diamonds are also the birthstone for April, you have two perfect excuses to try out their new customer experience area! This Vera Wang Love Ring princess ring is simply stunning – I wish I could have seen it in the flesh! It’s made of 0.95 carats of sparkly diamonds set in 18 carat white gold. Which reminds me, it’s actually mine and the other half’s 10 year anniversary at the end of the month so I think I’ll suggest a little shopping trip… well a girl can dream!

The refurbished Goldsmiths showroom is located at 6-8 Brigg Street, Norwich, NR2 1QN. It’s open from April 1st from 9.00am – 5.30pm, with extended shopping hours until 7pm on Thursdays and 10.30am to 4.30pm on Sundays.

I was so excited a couple of weeks ago to be invited to the brand new launch of Lands’ End at House of Fraser in Norwich! Unfortunaltey on the evening I was supposed to go, Fred was poorly so I couldn’t actually make it. I still wanted to tell you all about the evening though (as reported back to me) as I should have been there.

Lands’ End offer a large range of quality clothing and homewears with a guarantee that if you’re not happy with something you can return it AT ANY TIME. These products have a lifetime guarantee, if you’re not satisfied you can return for a refund or replacement whenever you like. I can’t think of any other company that offers this! Read their famous story about somebody purchasing and also returning a London taxi here! Amazing!

Anyway back to the event! It took place in Cafe Nero in House of Fraser, and was hosted by celebrity stylist Helen Boyle. Helen picked out a selection of Lands’ End garments and spoke about the key trends within the collection including rooted affair, monochrome and jeans wear. She showed the attendees how to style Lands’ End coats and jumpers and how to mix and match and coordinate items together. She also presented a selection of shoes and other accessories such as scarves that you can accessorise with any outfit.

I’ve also been quite ill lately so I haven’t actually been into the city for a long time, I’m definitely going to check Lands’ End out next time I’m there though, and hopefully stock up on some winter essentials!

If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed my excited / nervous tinged tweets about #bloggersfestival, which took place on Saturday. I was lucky enough to get a place for myself and Laura to go, so we thought as we were heading all the way into the Big Smoke we might as well make a day of it!

We got off the tube at Oxford Circus, then excitedly headed towards the shopping mecca that is Selfridges. Except we couldn’t find it. ‘I know it’s here!’ I told Laura, ‘It’s like the biggest building on Oxford street!’ After walking for ages with no sight of the massive columned building I finally gave up and checked google maps. I then realised we’d gotten off at the wrong tube station and we were actually at the wrong end of Oxford Street, oops! So we went back into the underground tube station at Tottenham Court Road (which was where we’d walked to, and coincidentally was also where #bloggersfestival was held) and ended up wandering into the depths of hell.

Ok that was a slight exaggeration but we entered a door marked ‘Central Line’ and followed a small corridor – there were no other people around. We then went down and down winding steps, whilst it was getting hotter and hotter. There were no other signs of life. I looked down the centre of the stair case and they just went on forever, down and down. We walked a bit further and I asked Laura, ‘Do you think we’re going to hell?’ The heat was unbelievable. We decided to go back up the stairs rather than heading down to to the fiery inferno (which was possibly the underground maintenance entrance) and found our way back onto the central line. WE ARE SUCH TOURISTS!

Anyway, after walking a zillion miles and getting on and off the tube about 5 times we found Selfridges, YAY! Surprisingly I didn’t actually buy anything (I know right) but after getting lost and all the running around we only had an hour before we had to had off to the event. We had a good look around and I did discover a new perfume too which I may have to snap up at a later date! We then headed towards Bloggers Festival…

For those of you that didn’t or couldn’t attend Bloggers Festival, I’ll set the scene for you. It was held in a large room, with a bar running along the centre. All the vendors had set up their stands around the edge of the room so you could easily walk around and see them all. Off the top of my head there was Quiz Clothing, Urban Outfitters, Bee Good, Ecco Shoes, Minimum, Want Her Dress, Very.co.uk, Lee Stafford, Oriflame, Search Laboratory and a few more. We were greeted with goody bags and a glass of bubbly on reception.

I got to speak to most of the vendors and they were all lovely, it was a great opportunity to check out some up and coming products (such a Very.co.uk’s amazing AW14 lines) and swap a few business cards! Most of the vendors also asked us to tweet certain hashtags for a chance of winning products too which was a great idea!

Quiz had some gorgeous evening dresses on show, and they also had a prize bowl, where you chose a piece of paper and if it had the right phrase on it (I don’t remember what it was) then you got to have a photo taken in front of their board and entered to win a prize.

You could take a picture with Urban Outfitters’ special pink camera, and the winner won an amazing record player!

Bee Good skincare is one of the brand I’d like to look into further, I tried a couple of products out which smelled lovely, and their range is actually made by beekeepers!

I had a signature nail wrap done by IZ Beauty of London, which was an awesome neon aztec design, and I got to take the rest of the set home to use myself.

Want Her Dress had loads of clothes on show, which were also on sale at fantastic prices. We also had a good chat with the owner who was lovely. She told us about some exciting things happening with their site this autumn, so stay tuned and I’ll hopefully have some more info on this soon!

And Very.co.uk had the most gorgeous party outfits on show, I loved the pink and green shimmery dresses…

But my favourite item was definitely this faux leather jacket, the detailing was just gorgeous! – FYI it should be available in November 🙂

This covers most of the vendors but not all of them as I didn’t get a chance to take photos of everyone!

Most of the vendors were also kind enough to also offer us goody bags, which was so lovely. I know you’ll all want to know what we got in the bags, so here’s a little look…

Some of the stand out items included a Lee Stafford Brush & Hair Treatment, and ECCO leather coin purse, a bracelet and £10 voucher from Very, a t-shirt from Minimum Fashion, a Celluence cellulite cream and an Oriflame Lipstick.

Oh and I also won this gorgeous Callie cream bag from Want Her Dress in the Twitter raffle, woo hoo!

I really had the best time ever, it was great meeting the faces behind some of the brands I love, as well as discovering some new ones. I also met a couple of ‘twitter friend’ bloggers which was lovely. After the event Laura and I headed back to Selfridges for a sit down with a massive slice of cake and a brew! I also want to say a massive congratulations to Scarlett for arranging such a successful event and thank you for letting me come along 🙂

Sorry this has been rather a long post, I hope it gives you an idea of what to expect from events if you’ve never been before!

Well I have been a busy bee this last week! If you saw yesterday’s post you’ll know I was at The White Company’s event on Wednesday, then on Thursday evening I was invited to the BareMinerals bloggers event at Debenhams in Norwich! How exciting! The BareMinerals team wanted to show us and tell us al about their brand new BareSkin Liquid Foundation! If you know the brand, you’ll know BareMinerals are famous for their powder mineral foundations, so this is their very first liquid foundation, and a really exciting new launch!

BareSkin is BareMinerals first ever liquid foundation, with a gorgeous ultra thin silky texture, it has a coconut derived base with jojoba coated mineral pigments and lilac plant stem cells, oh and there’s some good old vitamin c in there too!

As with the whole concept of BareMinerals, the point of the new BareSkin Pure Brightening Serum Foundation is that it doesn’t contain anything synthetic or bad for your skin, BareMinerals have come up with a liquid foundation that acts like skincare, which I think is a fabulous idea!

As well as the makeup, there were some gorgeous chocolate brownies and smoothies provided by Babychinos, a local vendor based in Norwich. BareMinerals chose this company specifically as all their products are made from scratch out of the highest quality ingredients and locally sourced products – which reflects BareMinerals company ethos.

Ok so ignore the darker bits around my hairline, this is the remnants of my previous foundation that was removed! We were shown how to apply the product using the new Perfecting Face Brush, adding two drops at a time to the centre reservoir of the brush then buffing into the skin. We were advised to use up to six drops in total for fuller coverage. I was really happy with the finish on my skin, it’s definitely the most lightweight foundation I’ve ever worn, and just like BareMinerals powder foundations it really felt like I wasn’t wearing any makeup – the finish really is so lightweight I can’t even tell you!

I’d definitely recommend this foundation if you like a natural, semi-matte finish, with medium coverage. The BareSkin Foundation is £26 and it can be purchased from Debenhams or direct from BareMinerals.co.uk.

I left with a good sized sample of BareSkin foundation and an amazing goody bag! Thank you so much!

Will you be trying the new BareSkin foundation? I hope you enjoyed my post! xxx

On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of attending the opening event for The White Company’s brand new store in Norwich. I’d never been to one of their stores before so I had no idea what to expect, their website is gorgeous though so I knew I was going to be in for a treat! I took a friend along and as soon as we walked in we’re greeted with bubbly and canapés, and the shop had a lovely ‘new home’ scent. The White Company Norwich offers a large selection of high end homewares, clothing and home accessories over two floors – I was also told this is a brand new concept store for TWC, so this store is the first of it’s kind in the country!

As soon as we entered, I was instantly attracted to the candle and scent section! On the picture above you can see the lovely candles are housed in glass domes – you pick the domes up and sniff inside them to try the candles, the domes hold the scents amazingly well!

It was also great to hear that their candles are made in the same factory as Jo Malone – the whole company reminds me of Jo Malone actually; everything is of the highest quality, luxurious yet understated, and comes gorgeously packaged too.

There was a section in the corner next to the candles for soaps and lotions, I love that they’ve included a sink so you can easily try products out and wash your hands! The layout of the whole store is so open, everything is on display wanting to be touched and tried!

The White Company also have their own mini perfume range, with Day and Night being their newest offerings. Day was a a lovely fresh scent and Night was a gorgeous heavier evening scent.

We wandered upstairs to take a look at the bedding and children’s sections, to be greeted by an amazing string quartet! (I must admit when I heard the music downstairs I thought it was a CD, ha ha!) I have a feeling this may not be a fixture though!

There’s no doubt that The White company have taken time to plan the interior down to the finest detail. Dotted all over the store you can find amazing lit and animated projections – such a the text ‘Sweet Dreams are Made of This’ on a pillow, and an animated circus scene on a poster next to a child’s bed.

So this store really is pretty amazing! And I had such a lovely time! I purchased a Pomegranate home candle and the sweetest ‘Bella’ bunny comforter for my friend who has just had a little girl, I couldn’t resist! The White Company also kindly sent me home with a lovely goody bag, including a shower gel and soap set, a bar of organic chocolate and a mini Seychelles candle, thanks guys!

If you’re ever in Norwich you really must check the store out!

Have you ever shopped at The White company before? I hope you enjoyed my post! xxx

About the Blog

Thou Shalt Not Covet… is a blog dedicated to my obsession with beautiful things, from fashion and make up, to lifestyle and travel. I will also be including product reviews, and anything else I want to share with the world!